Hot Lips
by Black Licorice Addict
Summary: Black Canary's lipstick was something of an urban legend to the team. Jaime had never really believed in its powers...until the day he saw it on Cassie. Wonderbeetle.


**A/N: There's a lot of angst in the fandom right now, so I figured I'd contribute a bit of heartwarming fluff and nonsense. I thought of this story after a night of wearing red lipstick, and it sorta went out of control from there. Wonderbeetle. This drabble ignores the episodes "Fix" and "Runaways" so...**

**Disclaimer: Do not own...but I may flail if this pairing ever becomes canon... **

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**Hot Lips**

The lipstick was somewhat of an urban legend on the team. It was said that Artemis won it from Black Canary the first time she got the drop on the older woman and pinned her to the floor. By hand. No arrows involved.

Wally used to retell those memories with a dreamy smile. As if it wasn't enough to have a badass for a girlfriend, he explained that the red lipstick triggered something inside the basal male brain that either caused it to go haywire or shut down all together.

Artemis kept the rouge stick in a place known only by the females of the team. A weapon that powerful had to be kept hidden from prying boy eyes in order to be utilized to its full advantage.

Even Nightwing had never been able to find it, though Jaime had a sneaking suspicion that was because Zatanna had cast some sort of enchantment on its location.

If he had found it, Nightwing was almost certain to have destroyed it because of its highly volatile properties towards men.

Jaime had spotted Batgirl wearing it on occasion, usually after a disagreement with Nightwing. And she was ALWAYS dressed to the nines while wearing it. Sometimes he even caught Nightwing hastily rubbing off remnants of the carmine wax from his mouth after these incidences.

Karen liked to wear it on special date nights with Mal, which were slowly getting fewer and farther in between.

Sometimes Zatanna dropped by to apply some, claiming its magical powers far exceeded her own when snagging an attractive date for a night on the town.

M'gann had used the gloss so frequently the year Artemis had won it that she was forced to beat Black Canary in hand-to-hand combat before the Justice Leaguer would give up the secret location where she purchased it. This proved to be the undoing of men everywhere as the girls finally had an unlimited supply.

For the most part, female teammates wearing the lipstick rarely registered on Jaime's radar except for the presence of a bright color out of the corner of his eye. That held true until the fateful night he came back with the rest of Alpha, thoroughly bruised and exhausted and ready to hit the showers. Karen and Cassie were already at the base, dressed in civilian formal wear and debriefing Batgirl, who had taken Mal's place as coordinator for the evening.

Cassie's eyes drifted slightly to the side, meeting his in a smoldering gaze. Jaime swore his heart stopped. The bright rubicund color highlighted her naturally full lips, which were slowly forming into a smirk that the third Blue Beetle maintained was directed intentionally at him. His brain was a foggy swamp of hormones reacting in mini explosions that continued to destroy necessary processing centers.

The scarab shocked him back to reality. Literally.

"OUCH! _A que cab_-"

_You were non-responsive and your heart had momentarily desisted before launching into an arrhythmic pattern. You should avoid observing the Wonder Girl as she is-_

"Blue? Are you even listening?" Robin demanded, interrupting the scarab's tirade.

"Wha- Of course!" Blue Beetle lied, sneaking a glance back at Wonder Girl only to find her attention fully engaged in a conversation with Batgirl.

"Really?" Robin demanded sarcastically, exchanging dubious looks with Beast Boy and Superboy. "Then what was the last thing I said?"

"Uh…"

_He asked if you could upload our scans into the mainframe files to be analyzed by the Nightwing later,_ the scarab supplied. Jaime could picture the piece of tech mentally rolling its eyes at its host.

"I will definitely upload the scans before I go," Jaime answered. Robin, seemingly satisfied, said goodnight and made his way toward Barbara, who had finished conversing with the other two girls.

Gar launched himself onto Superboy's back, and the two made their way toward the living room to watch Gar's favorite Animal Planet show. The computer's voice announced Bumblebee's departure, drawing Jaime's attention back to Cassie.

Wonder Girl looked around confusedly, and Jaime realized that the bat brats had pulled the ninja disappearing act. He and Cassie were alone.

She turned to face him fully, a nervous grin tugging at those vibrant lips, her heels clicking on the hard floor as she walked toward him. Jaime met her half way, not aware that his feet had moved of their own accord toward the blonde bombshell.

"Hey Blue," she greeted him, flashing gorgeous white teeth between the crimson lines. Her dark, navy-colored dress left plenty to Jaime's imagination, rendering him unable to focus enough of his thought processes to coming up with a suave reply.

"You look amazing," he blurted out, fully conscious of the blush that was covering his entire face and grateful that the armor hid it. He could smell her flowery perfume as it filtered through the blue metal surrounding his nose.

_Hibiscus tiliaceus, Vanilla polylepis, Syringa pinnatfolia, _the scarab droned on, identifying each individual flower his host inhaled. Jaime didn't even hear him; his brown eyes flitted between Cassie's eyes and her lips, which were opened in a wide, familiar smile.

"Thanks. The mission was pretty boring though. Just a stakeout," she informed him, her lashes closing and opening with tantalizingly allure.

Jaime was acutely aware of his own state, how he probably smelled like landfill and burnt metal and looked like he had been hit by the space shuttle. But the biochemical damage had been done, and Jaime wasn't completely in control of his mental processors. He was slowly caving in to his more primitive functions, and right now those functions demanded that he whisk Cassie off to a deserted closet and kiss the erythraean lipstick right off her.

Unfortunately, the scarab seemed to know exactly where Jaime's train of thought was headed. _Negative, Jaime Reyes. This course of action is ill-advised and could result in unnecessary complications._

Jaime powered down the suit to minimize the potential for Scarab's interference. "Wanna go swap stories over ice cream? My treat?" He shoved his sweaty hands in his pockets, crossing his fingers in hopes that she'd say yes.

He didn't know it was possible for her smile to get any wider. "I'd like that," she beamed, lacing her arm through the crook of his left elbow.

The zeta computer announced the duo's departure, but the only ones who noticed had mysteriously reappeared from thin air.

"Whoa."

"Told ya," came Batgirl's smug retort. "It's all in the lipstick. Well, most of it," she amended. "It's more like the fishing line that reels them in."

"I'd never believed you until now," Tim told her, still flabbergasted at how easily his quiet, sensible older teammate had been rendered helpless by the power of the red gloss.

Barbara clapped a hand on the younger bat's shoulders. "_Yeeeaaah_….You're probably not going to get Blue's scans tonight."

"Figures," Tim grumbled. His mood had taken a sharp turn, and he might have stomped off had he not caught the mischievous glint in Barbara's eyes.

"_You_!" He accused, jabbing a finger sharply into her shoulder pad. "You gave it to Cassie on purpose. You _knew_ this would happen!"

Batgirl shrugged off his ire easily. "I was helping out a friend. No harm done, so don't get your spandex in a twist," she chided, sauntering over to a zeta tube.

"Says the girl who doesn't have to explain to Nightwing why their debriefing is missing a chunk of data," he called after her.

She mockingly waved her hand as her molecules dissipated back to Gotham, leaving Tim to wallow in his annoyance at the situation.

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Two hours and forty-seven minutes later, Jaime zeta-ed back to the base to upload the forgotten files, offering a rushed apology to Nightwing and Robin. Both bats stood by silently, eyes wide with surprise as they observed the sixteen year old plug the armor into the mainframe, dump the information off, then practically sprint back toward the tubes to leave once again.

They wondered if Jaime knew he had red lipstick all over his mouth.

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**A/N: Those are legit flowers FYI. I seriously researched them.**


End file.
